Boundaries Over Burnout: Your Guide to Maintaining Balance at Work

Burnout is a very real and present risk in modern-day working culture, with around 91% of UK adults reporting high or extreme levels of pressure or stress in the past year (according to the 2026 Burnout Report commissioned by Mental Health UK).

While most of us might think we manage okay at work, our busy lifestyles can leave us little time for proper rest and recovery. And without conscious effort to set aside time for our own mental health, we run the risk of investing too much physical and emotional energy into tasks, setting us on a path towards exhaustion and burnout.

In this blog, we’ll discuss how you can set boundaries to help protect your emotional and physical wellbeing at work and keep burnout at bay.

The Negative Impacts of Burnout

Burnout is much more than occasionally feeling stressed – in fact, certain types of stress can actually be good for you (in small, occasional doses). 

Rather, burnout is a debilitating state of exhaustion brought on by prolonged exposure to chronic stress and pressure – it affects your physical, mental, and emotional health and can leave you feeling unable to function normally. Some of the most common symptoms include:

• Persistent tiredness or exhaustion
• Insomnia
• Headaches
• Aches and pains
• More frequent illnesses due to lowered immunity
• Feelings of defeat, hopelessness or overwhelm
• Feelings of detachment or isolation
• Demotivation and loss of interest or enjoyment in work
• Feelings of anxiety and dread

The behavioural effects of burnout also include withdrawing from work responsibilities, short temper, and self-medicating with food, alcohol or drugs.

Burnout isn’t considered a mental health condition on its own (it’s actually an ‘occupational phenomenon’). But it can be a significant risk factor for poor mental health and conditions such as depression and anxiety, especially if the root causes aren’t dealt with early on.

As well as the human cost of burnout, the wider economic impacts are also significant. According to a 2023 study, burnout and work-related stress costs the UK an estimated £28 billion a year, with over 23.3 million sick days a year taken by employees. 

It’s no surprise, then, that burnout is often referred to as an ‘epidemic’ in the UK, with wide-reaching consequences for our mental and physical health, the economy, and the world of work at large.

The good news is that you can take active steps to protect yourself from burnout by starting to utilise boundaries to prioritise your mental health and wellbeing in the workplace.

What are boundaries and why are they important?

A boundary is an action that you take to protect your own values, health or wellbeing. It isn’t something that you impose on others – instead, it’s an imaginary line that you draw around yourself and the action you’ll take if someone crosses that line.

For example, say you no longer want to deal with emails after 5pm to prevent yourself from being overworked. You could either:

• Tell your colleagues not to email you after 5pm, or;
• Tell your colleagues that any emails sent after 5pm will be read the next morning when you log back into work.

Of these two examples, only the second one is an example of setting a boundary, as it focuses solely on your own actions and limits. 

Boundaries are actions that you take to advocate for yourself. They’re not about controlling other people or trying to dictate the behaviours of others around you. Another way of putting it is that it’s a form of self-care you take to prioritise your own wellbeing.

The Benefits of Setting Boundaries at Work

Establishing boundaries is an important tool for preventing burnout and maintaining a healthy work/life balance. For example, boundaries:

• Prevent you from becoming overwhelmed with too many tasks at once, allowing you to better manage your workload
• Ensure you take proper time for yourself to rest and recover from work – studies have shown that psychologically detaching from work during off hours has significant benefits for mental health
• Help you to say ‘no’ to things more often – constantly saying “yes” to things at work can drain your emotional and physical energy. Knowing where your limits are and establishing boundaries to protect them is key to staving off the risks of burnout

Finally, not only do boundaries set healthy expectations with others, but they also help to develop self-confidence, self-respect and assertiveness – all valuable traits to protect your mental wellbeing.

How to Set Boundaries at Work to Avoid Burnout

Setting boundaries at work doesn’t have to involve making huge, sweeping changes to your work life. Burnout occurs due to prolonged, long-term exposure to stress, so even taking small steps to reduce your risk factors can help prevent short-term stress from becoming a long-term problem.

Here are some examples of how healthy boundaries can help reduce the risk of burnout at work. With boundaries, you can:

• Limit instances where you work longer than your contracted hours
• Protect your personal time and ensure work doesn’t negatively impact other parts of your life or your ‘you’ time
• Take regular breaks from work
• Stop taking on unnecessary responsibilities or more work than you’re able to
• Help manage your professional relationships at work and protect your emotional energy when interacting with colleagues
• More easily disconnect from work outside of working hours

Below is a step-by-step guide on how to go about establishing healthy boundaries at work, with some simple practical tips on how to make them stick.

Step 1: Establish Your Boundary 

Firstly, establish what your boundary is – what is it protecting you from and what do you want it to achieve? 

For example, say you’ve been feeling stressed because you’ve been tasks that aren’t normally your responsibility. A boundary you can set up is that you’ll no longer accept work that doesn’t fall under your job remit if you’re already at full capacity. Or you could say that you’ll only devote a maximum of 20 minutes a day helping out with those tasks.

If you’re nervous about setting up boundaries at work, start with something small and work your way up to the bigger things. For example, an initial starting point might be spending a full lunch break without looking at your work laptop.

When drawing up your boundary, make sure that it’s realistic, doesn’t infringe on the rights of others, or conflict with anything that is genuinely essential. While it’d be great to have a boundary that says you’re only available to work four hours a day, this obviously won’t be viable if you’re contracted to work 40 hours a week.

Ultimately, your boundaries should:

• Be clearly defined with no room for ambiguity – for example, say “I won’t have any capacity to take on additional tasks for the next two weeks” rather than “I’m quite busy at the moment”
• Be led with ‘I’ statements rather than telling others what to do – i.e. “I won’t be available for calls after hours” instead of “please do not call me after hours”
• Set out to achieve a clear goal, like making sure your free time is respected, limiting your exposure to stress indicators, or removing yourself from situations where you feel emotionally overwhelmed.

Step 2: Clearly Communicate Your Boundary 

After establishing what your boundary is, communicate them clearly to the people who’ll need to know about it. Be kind and diplomatic here – although you’re standing up for your own wellbeing, you shouldn’t set out to antagonise anyone!

A good strategy here is to offer alternative solutions that still prioritise your wellbeing and mental load. For example, if you want to cut down the amount of overtime hours you’re working, this can be a conversation with your boss about how best to re-prioritise or re-organise your workload to ensure that you’re still fulfilling your core duties during work hours. 

Similarly, if you’re asked to attend a meeting that you don’t necessarily have time for, you could respond by accepting the invitation but with the caveat that you’ll only be able to stay for the first fifteen minutes, after which you’ll have to return to your main tasks. 

Smaller boundaries, like not responding to emails outside of work hours, might be communicated in things like your email signature or a Teams status.

Step 3: Stick to Your Boundary

This step is the most important but also the most difficult. Once you’ve established your boundary, you then need to stick to it – consistently.

Allowing people to cross your boundary, even occasionally, sends out mixed signals. Over time, people could see your boundary as something to be pushed back on, or even ignored, if they know you’ve been inconsistent in upholding it.

Meanwhile, being consistent with your boundary sends out a clear message: your boundary is fixed and is there to be respected. Doing this from the start will prevent any misunderstandings down the line and help to manage others’ expectations of you.

Here are some tips to help you stick to your boundaries:

• Stand your ground when you experience pushback. Be firm but kind and explain your boundary clearly and succinctly.
• Become comfortable with saying “no”. This can be challenging at first, but it’s crucial when setting out a boundary and honouring your own needs first.
• Don’t over-justify or over-explain your boundary. Boundaries don’t need to be accompanied with long rationales as to why they’re there – just a short and simple statement is all that’s needed. For example: “My working hours are 9am to 5:30pm and I don’t respond to emails outside of these hours. Thanks.”
• Be prepared for feelings of guilt or discomfort. Boundary setting can be challenging, especially if you’ve previously found it difficult to advocate for yourself. Allow these feelings to pass, though, and focus on the positive actions you’re taking to put your wellbeing first.

Step 4: Review Your Boundaries Regularly 

As our situations in life and work can change over time, so can our boundaries. It’s a good idea to check-in with yourself from time to time and review your boundaries to see if they’re still needed or if they can be adjusted or removed due to changes in your personal circumstances.

For instance, you might no longer need a boundary preventing you from taking on additional projects at work if you’ve got fewer personal commitments taking up your time and energy. Similarly, you might want to relax some of your boundaries if you move jobs to a less stressful and high-pressure workplace. 

Boundaries should be in place solely to help you, so feel free to adjust them if they’re no longer fulfilling that purpose.

The Importance of Keeping Boundaries

There’s a saying that “the only people who get upset about you setting boundaries are the ones who were benefiting from you having none.” We’d be inclined to agree.

While it’s tempting to say yes to everything and everyone at work, giving away so much of your time and energy to other people will eventually eat away at you and leave you feeling empty, exhausted, and resentful. Similarly, finally being able to say “no” to people who don’t necessarily have your best interests at heart can be an empowering experience.

Boundaries are fundamentally an act of self-care – and knowing how to care for yourself at work can be crucial to helping keep burnout at bay and yourself happy and balanced.

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